Sunday, March 25, 2012

Wasn't "Don't Jump on a Trampoline" a Joba Rule?

Joba Chamberlain's career has been derailed and sidelined by so much stupidity that it is almost fitting that one final dumb act could have put a fork in it.

Has a more apt metaphor ever sent a once great player crashing quite like this?Joba's career was up and down and up and down... all the while he has been a big kid if sometimes a little jittery and has a loving (if somewhat complex) family.

And what does he do?He jumps up and down, acting like a kid, while with his own kid and busts his ankle.

Optimistically he will be back in July.This might not be a Kendrys Morales situation interms of severity of his injury but it could be as stupid as the Angels first baseman derailing his career jumping on home plate.

Seriously, how could this have happened?

What else was on that to do list?Bungee jumping?Torch juggling?Crocodile wrestling?

Don't give me the crap of "He was being a good father."He could be just as good a father staying on the sidelines watching his kid jump on a trampoline!Or reading a book to his kids.

Do you know what a REALLY good father would do?Not put at risk a career that could not only take care of his kids financially but their grandkids as well.

When your career is on the line and you are already coming back from surgery and a career that is no longer as promising as it once was, why would you do ANYTHING risky?

Remember when he was being called a future ace? Mariano's heir? A potential #1 starter?He was going into 2012 as "potential 4th option out of the bullpen."You know, the role they give AAA players and veterans playing for one year contracts.

As the great Lisa Swan wrote "this isn't bad luck. Getting covered by midges is bad luck."(By the way, she wrote a great piece about Joba on Subway Squawkers.)

I'll take it a step further. I'll quote John Belushi and say "That's not bad luck. That's DUMB luck."

Joba has made good money so far. (May we all make a couple of million dollars before age 26.)But he hasn't hit the megabucks yet.He hasn't made the stupid money.He hasn't made the tens of millions of dollars owed to good, let alone great, pitchers... especially those who play in a big market.

Think $2 million will last a lifetime?Ask Antoine Walker how long $110 million will last if you don't manage it well.

I can imagine Joba's son years from now asking him "Daddy. Why aren't we rich like all your other Yankee friends?"

"Well you see when you were five years old, I decided to take my 250 pound frame and jump it up and down when I was coming back from a career threatening injury."